I clearly remember one day as a kid when I had spent most of the day at a friend’s house. We played games inside and outside all day and had lunch with his mom. In the late afternoon the doorbell rang, it was my mother coming to pick me up. I grabbed my bag and stood outside the door while my mother spoke with my friend’s mother. As they chatted, a screaming woman approached running down the street. Her words were unintelligible. When she saw us, she paused and said, “have you not heard of the bomb?” “What bomb?” my mother asked. “The one they’re trying to defuse at the circus down the street!” The Russian circus was less than one block away from my friend’s house.
My mother immediately grabbed me by the hand and we ran for the car. Behind us followed my friend and his mother in their Volkswagen bug. We drove away as quickly as possible. Thankfully that Saturday afternoon the bomb was defused and nobody died. Blowing up a circus full of children would have been disastrous. Unfortunately in the late 1980s and early 1990s thousands died in Lima, Peru at the hands of terrorists who set deadly car bombs throughout the city. Every citizen lived in terror, never knowing when and where the next attack would happen. Windows rattled whenever bombs exploded followed by hours or days of power outages. This city of millions had a curfew imposed for many months and all caught in the street at night would be heavily interrogated and possibly imprisoned.
The recent events in Paris have left millions upset and disturbed. These attacks were senseless acts of terror that ended lives abruptly, ravaging families and disturbing the fabric of society. When these sorts of attacks occur many tend to ask the same question, “where was God in all of this?” There is a tendency to blame God for the misfortunes that unfold in the world and to hold him accountable whenever unfair and painful events happen.
God by his nature cannot be the source of evil. He cannot will it nor can he make it happen. Yet at the same time, Jesus never promised life would be easy. He taught us that the way into heaven is indeed a narrow gate, and that we are called to pick our cross. The presence of evil should not drive us away from God, but rather draw us closer to Him since He desires to help us endure our sufferings. Only God can heal us and help us put evil in perspective, filling us with hope and joy even when darkness surrounds us. The light of Christ shines brightly, and its intensity grows whenever the darkness is stronger.
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